Three People Found Shot Dead On French Island

Three people have been found shot dead in a car on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

The bodies were discovered in a village near the town of Corte in the north of the island, which has suffered three decades of low-level violence by separatists opposed to French rule.

Local newspaper Corse Matin has reported that one of three people killed was "known to police".

A dozen men have been shot dead in Corsica since the start of the year. Police say some of them were victims of score-settling in ongoing feuds.

On Monday, a series of explosions hit seven supermarkets in Corsica, claiming no victims and causing only minor damage.

The blasts hit supermarkets in the island's main city Ajaccio and in the Upper Corsica region. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The island, with a population of 306,000, has more supermarkets per head than any other region of France and plans for a new hypermarket in the suburbs of Ajaccio were abandoned last year after complaints.

In recent years there have been numerous bombings by the Corsican National Liberation Front but they have mainly targeted holiday homes of people from the mainland.

The three deaths come less than a week after a family from Britain was gunned down in the French Alps.

Saad al Hilli, his wife Iqbal and her mother were found dead in their car in a forest car park near the village of Chevaline on Wednesday. A French cyclist was also killed.

The al Hillis' daughter Zainab, aged seven, was seriously wounded and her four-year-old sister Zeena escaped by hiding under her dead mother's skirt.